Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons) (3 page)

We are four,
Laira thought, staring at the family, perhaps the
only other Vir Requis in the world, the only other souls who could
become dragons.
Yet once we were five.
Her eyes stung and the
hollowness of losing her brother filled her with more pain than her
wounds.

"What was that thing?" Laira whispered. She looked at Maev
and Tanin; the two had flown to Eteer to save Sena, and they had
battled demons there. Their quest felt so meaningless to Laira now;
all the blood they had shed to save Sena, all in vain . . .

Maev kicked a fallen chunk of octopus. "A scout. A big one too.
This one ate human flesh; it's the only way they can grow this big."
She kicked the glob again. "Your father's looking for us, little
Laira. But he won't hear any news from our friend here."

Laira closed her eyes and lowered her head, the pain too great to
bear. Her chest tightened and her belly felt full of ice.

My mother—burned at the stake. My brother—dead at his own hands.
My father—a ruler of the demons that hunt me.

Even standing here among her fellow Vir Requis, Laira felt alone, too
hurt to open her eyes again, too broken, too scarred. The grief was a
weight she could not carry.

But no,
she thought, eyes stinging.
I'm not alone.

Her memories returned to her last days in Eteer, a child of only
three. Those memories were vague, mere hints of pictures and sounds,
but among them Laira saw a babe, an innocent girl. A younger sister.

"You're still out there, Issari," she whispered. "My
little sister. You're still in Eteer, and I'm so afraid for you."
She raised her head, opened her eyes, and looked at the others. She
spoke louder. "We must bury Sena. We will bury him with the
others—with little Requiem and Eranor. He will rest with them
forever. His soul will rise to the Draco stars."

Stepping through puddles of blood, she made her way downhill, moving
back toward the place where she'd left Sena's body. When she reached
the oak, she froze and sucked in breath. A cluster of the octopus
spawn still lived. They were piled together, feasting, guzzling down
meat.

Laira shifted into a dragon, roared, and raced toward them. She
whipped her tail, knocking the demonic brood aside. They slammed into
tree trunks, hissing, blood on their mouths, gobbets of Laira's
brother stuck between their teeth. When Laira leaped toward the place
where Sena's body had lain, she found it gone. Nothing but blood
remained.

She howled. The sound tore through her throat, tore through her soul,
a cry of more mourning than she'd felt since her mother had died.

She blew her flames.

She torched the octopus spawn.

They burned, squealing, tumbling over, reaching out their flaming
tentacles toward her. They seemed almost to beg.

She could not bury her brother; she would give him a funeral in fire.

By the time the other Vir Requis joined her, the creatures lay as
charred clumps, and Laira knelt in the burnt grass, shaking and too
hurt to weep.

Goodbye, my brother,
she thought.
Fly to our mother and be
at peace . . . a peace I've never felt.

She looked back at the others. They stood together in human forms,
watching her, hesitating.

"He will send more demons," Laira said, her voice sounding
hollow to her ears. "My father will never stop hunting us. With
blood and flame, we forged a kingdom among the birches. Now our war
of independence begins."

 
 
DORVIN

Dorvin
stood above the creature's corpse, spat on it, and kicked the
diseased flesh.

"Arse-biting, mammoth-shagging piece of shite." Dorvin gave
the beast another kick, his foot sinking into rotted flesh. "What
the Abyss is this son of a whore?"

He stared down at the creature, disgust swirling through him. Dorvin
was only twenty-two winters old, but he'd fought hundreds of beasts
already—mammoths, saber-toothed cats, the cannibals of the east, and
even wild rocs. Back in his tribe, the fabled Clan of Stonespear,
he'd slaughtered more beasts than even the chieftain. Yet he'd never
seen a creature like this.

He brushed flecks of its flesh off his fur tunic. "By the Sky
Mother, it's an ugly piss-drinker, it is."

The creature was large as a dragon, and four wings grew from its
back, each covered with a rug of human fingers—
thousands
of
fingers that grew like grass. Even in death, those fingers twitched
as if trying to grasp him. The creature's body was lank and tumors
covered its face, some of them leaking. This was no animal. This was
an unholy terror from another world.

A soft voice rose behind him. "A demon. A demon from the Abyss."

Dorvin turned to see Alina, his sister, approaching. The young
druid—she was only two years older than him—wore lavender robes and
moccasins trimmed with fur. Her long auburn hair spilled from under
her hood, and her eyes gleamed, large and deep purple. She held a
staff formed of a great oak root; at its tip, wooden tendrils
clutched a blue crystal. A necklace of beads hung around her neck,
and a bracelet of true bronze—a priceless metal—encircled her left
wrist.

"A demon?" Dorvin shook his head in amazement, shoved down
his spear, and pierced the corpse's flesh. "Bloody mammoth
shite."

Alina came to stand beside him, looked at the creature, and closed
her eyes. She reached into a leather pouch that hung from her belt,
pulled out blue powder, and sprinkled it into the wind. She whispered
prayers to the dragon constellation, her goddess.

"Bless us, stars of the Sky Dragon," Alina said, looking up
into the sky. Daylight shone and the stars slept, yet Alina claimed
that they always listened. "Watch over your children."

Dorvin muttered under his breath. Stars. Goddesses. Demons. What did
he know of these things? He was a hunter. He dealt with blood and
fire. Let his sister pray to spirits. His task wasn't to follow
spiritual leaders but to be a leader himself.

He turned away from the corpse and faced the others, his group of
vagabonds. They stood clustered together between patches of melting
snow, nineteen souls—elders, children, a pregnant mother, a few
young men and women . . . all outcasts. All cursed. All like him.
Weredragons.

"What is it, Dorvin?" said Old Nan, seventy winters old,
her white hair streaming in the wind. Fear filled her eyes.

"It said it's hunting weredragons!" called out Bryn, a
young woman with red hair and blazing brown eyes.

They all began to mutter, glancing around, whispering, weeping,
praying. Tears flowed. Panic began to spread. Every one of these
souls carried memories of abuse, exile, and fear, and Dorvin had
promised to lead them to safety. He would not let this group crumble.

"Silence!" he roared. He sucked up his magic and shifted.

Silver scales rose upon him, his fangs and claws sprouted, and he
beat his wings. He rose to hover several feet above the ground,
scattering snow, and blasted a jet of flame skyward. His roar shook
the forest. All the others froze and stared at him, finally falling
silent. Dorvin landed in the snow again, staying in his dragon form.
He stared at his people, one by one, smoke pluming from his nostrils.

"By the Sky Mother's swollen teats!" he said. "After
all we've been through—fleeing our tribes and villages, trekking
through the wilderness all winter, nearly freezing our arses off—are
you going to let one little demon frighten you?" He spat a glob
of fiery saliva; it burned, digging a hole into the ground. "I
am Dorvin, son of Karash, a hunter. I told you I'd lead you to
safety, and stars damn it, I will. We will find a new home. We will
find this place called Requiem."

Alina stepped up to stand by Dorvin. Still in human form, her purple
robes fluttering in the wind, she addressed the crowd. While Dorvin's
voice was loud and fast, she spoke in a smooth, slow lilt like the
music of flutes.

"Children of Starlight." She pulled back her hood, and her
auburn hair billowed. Her eyes shone, deep purple flecked with gold.
"Let no fear fill your hearts, for the Sky Dragon constellation
shines upon us. The stars of our magic bless us. They will keep us
safe. Shift with me, my friends. Become the dragons, take flight, and
find the sky."

Smiling softly, Alina shifted and soared, a lavender dragon with
white horns. Her scales gleamed in the sunlight, and a stream of fire
rose from her mouth, white and blue and spinning as it crackled.
Dorvin beat his wings and rose to fly at her side, and they spun
together, two dragons, silver and lavender, wreathed in flame.

"Rise, dragons!" Dorvin shouted. "Show me your
strength."

The frightened, hungry people—exiled from their homes for their
curses—summoned their magic. Nineteen more dragons rose into the
sky, their scales of many colors, and their flames rose, many columns
of a fiery palace.

"Like this we are strong!" Dorvin roared.

Alina flew above him. "Like this we are blessed."

Dorvin turned in the sky and began flying north, leading the others,
leaving the corpse behind. He knew that some among them feared the
sky—the sky was full of rocs, pteros, and now demons—but Dorvin
would have them conquer fear.

For too many years, we were afraid,
he thought.
For too
many years we dared not shift. Now the sky is ours.

Pain welled inside him, and he growled and spewed flames. The damn
memories would not leave him. Even here, in the sky, a proud silver
dragon, he remembered his old tribe's hunters mocking him, calling
him a creature, a reptile, a cursed one. He remembered their Elder
Druid, a proud old man with a bald head and stern eyes, striking
Alina, spitting upon her, banishing her from their order because of
her magic. Everyone who flew behind him had such a story to tell. To
the world they were monsters, but Dorvin refused to treat them so.

"We are dragons!" he called out to them now, flying at
their lead. "We are proud and strong."

Gliding beside him, Alina smiled. "We are blessed with
starlight."

As they flew onward, Dorvin's eyes stung and watered. He told himself
it was only the cold wind.

"Do you think it's truly out there?" he said to his sister,
his voice too soft for the others to hear. "A kingdom called
Requiem, a home for our kind?"

Beads of sunlight glimmered on her lavender scales. "Travelers
whisper of Requiem. The demon we slew spoke the name. A place for
dragons." She nodded, tears in her eyes. "Requiem exists.
We will find her fabled column of marble, and we will find a home."

Dorvin took a shuddering breath, trying to imagine it. An entire
kingdom of weredragons! A place where they would be accepted, no
longer feared or spat upon. Nobody would call him cursed there.
Nobody would strike his sister. In the clouds, Dorvin pretended that
he could see this fabled new kingdom, a sanctuary founded only this
winter. In his mind, he saw soaring columns of stone, palaces of
gold, cobbled streets, statues, and thousands of others like him.
Raised in a tribe of hunter-gatherers, Dorvin had never seen a city
before, but he had heard tales of cities—they said some existed
beyond the sea—and that was how he imagined Requiem. A city of
marble, gold, and dragon magic.

They flew onward, crossing plains of grass, rustling forests budding
with spring leaves, and chalk mountains whose faces gleamed golden in
the sun. Sheets of rain swayed in the east, and the sun gleamed in
the west. The shadows of dragons swept across the endless world,
crossing rivers, hills, and valleys. Tribes of hunters raced below,
smaller than ants from up here, pointing upward at the dragon flock.
Mammoths raced through grasslands and wildebeests swept across
plains. The world seemed eternal, empty, rising from darkness into a
dawn of life.

It's a dawn of dragons,
Dorvin thought.
Requiem rises.

They flew until the sun set and the stars emerged. Millions of these
sky spirits gleamed, and among them shone
their
stars—the
stars shaped as a dragon, the Draco constellation. Alina called the
constellation a goddess, the Sky Dragon who protected their kind, and
as she flew, she prayed to those stars. Her voice rose in song.

"Stars of dragons! Forever we fly in your light. Forever you
will shine upon us. We are dragons. We are Requiem. Ours are the
stars."

The others sang too, twenty dragon voices singing in the night. "Ours
are the stars."

They had been flying for many days and nights now, sleeping in the
wilderness, crossing the marks, traversing the world, seeking that
pillar, that beacon of marble, seeking King's Column—the heart of
their legendary home. Sometimes Dorvin wondered if they'd ever find
it, if it even existed.

If there is no Requiem,
he thought,
and if King's Column is
but a fable, we will seek her still. If Requiem does not exist upon
the land, she will exist in our hearts, a light that forever guides
us.

Dawn was rising again, gold and blue, when Dorvin saw it ahead, and
tears filled his eyes.

At his side, Alina gasped and wept. Behind them the other dragons
whispered, cried out in joy, and sang prayers.

"King's Column!" they said. "Requiem! Requiem is
real."

Gliding on the wind, Dorvin could barely breathe. He had always
thought himself strong, a vicious hunter of beasts, a man with no
weakness inside him, yet now tears streamed down his scaly cheeks.

"It's real," he whispered.

The pillar was still distant, ten marks away or more, a mere sliver
from here. Yet its light shone across the world. The column rose from
a forest, taller than any tree, gleaming white and silver. A sunbeam
fell upon its capital, breaking into many rays like the fabled
lighthouses said to exist across the sea. Birches spread around the
pillar, and blue mountains rose behind.